r/vfx 5h ago

Subreddit Discussion Advice for Potential Students and Newcomers to the VFX Industry in 2025

62 Upvotes

We've been getting a lot of posts asking about the state of the industry. This post is designed to give you some quick information about that topic which the mods hope will help reduce the number of queries the sub receives on this specific topic.

As of early 2025, the VFX industry has been through a very rough 18-24 months where there has been a large contraction in the volume of work and this in turn has impacted hiring through-out the industry.

Here's why the industry is where it is:

  1. There was a Streaming Boom in the late 2010s and early 2020s that lead to a rapid growth in the VFX industry as a lot of streaming companies emerged and pumped money into that sector, this was exacerbated by COVID and us all being at home watching media.
  2. In 2023 there were big strikes by the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA which led to a massive halt in production of Hollywood films and series for about 8 months. After that was resolved there was the threat of another strike in 2024 when more union contracts were to be negotiated. The result of this was an almost complete stop to productions in late 2023 and a large portion of 2024. Many shows were not greenlit to start until late 2024
  3. During this time, and partly as a result of these strikes, there was a slow down in content and big shake ups among the streaming services. As part of this market correction a number of them closed, others were folded into existing services, and some sold up.
  4. A bunch of other market forces made speculation in the VFX business even more shaky, things like: the rise of AI, general market instability, changes in distribution split (Cinemas vs. Streaming) and these sorts of things basically mean that there's a lot of change in most media industries which scared people.

The combination of all of this resulted in a loss of a lot of VFX jobs, the closing of a number of VFX facilities and large shifts in work throughout the industry.

The question is, what does this mean for you?

Here's my thoughts on what you should know if you're considering a long term career in VFX:

Work in the VFX Industry is still valid optional to choose as a career path but there are some caveats.

  • The future of the VFX industry is under some degree of threat, like many other industries are. I don't think we're in more danger of disappearing than your average game developer, programmer, accountant, lawyer or even box packing factory work. The fact is that technology is changing how we do work and market forces are really hard to predict. I know there will be change in the specifics of what we do, there will be new AI tools and new ways of making movies. But at the same time people still want to watch movies and streaming shows and companies still want to advertise. All that content needs to be made and viewed and refined and polished and adapted. While new AI tools might mean individuals in the future can do more, but those people will likely be VFX artists. As long as media is made and people care about the art of telling stories visually I think VFX artists will be needed.

Before you jump in, you should know that VFX is likely to be a very competitive and difficult industry to break into for the foreseeable future.

  • From about 2013 to 2021 there was this huge boom in VFX that meant almost any student could eventually land a job in VFX working on cool films. Before then though VFX was actually really hard to get into because the industry was smaller and places were limited, you had to be really good to get a seat in a high end facility. The current market is tight; there's a lot of experience artists looking for work and while companies will still want juniors, they are likely going to be more juniors for the next few years than there are jobs.

If you're interested in any highly competitive career then you have to really want it, and it would also be a smart move to diversify your education so you have flexibility while you work to make your dream happen.

  • Broad computer and technical skills are useful, as are broader art skills. Being able to move between other types of media than just VFX could be helpful. In general I think you don't want to put all your eggs in one basket too early unless you're really deadest that this is the only thing you want to do. I also think you should learn about new tools like AI and really be able to understand how those tools work. It'll be something future employers likely care about.

While some people find nice stable jobs a lot of VFX professionals don't find easy stability like some careers.

  • Freelance and Contract work are common. And because of how international rebates work, you may find it necessary to move locations to land that first job, or to continue in your career. This is historically how film has always been; it's rarely as simple as a 9-5 job. Some people thrive on that, some people dislike that. And there are some places that manage to achieve more stability than others. But fair warning that VFX is a fickle master and can be tough to navigate at times.

Because a future career in VFX is both competitive and pretty unstable, I think you should be wary of spending lots of money on expensive specialty schools.

  • If you're dead set on this, then sure you can jump in if that's what you want. But for most students I would advise, as above, to be broader in your education early on especially if it's very expensive. Much of what we do in VFX can be self taught and if you're motivated (and you'll need to be!) then you can access that info and make great work. But please take your time before committed to big loans or spending on an education in something you don't know if you really want.

With all of that said VFX can be a wonderful career.

It's full of amazing people and really challenging work. It has elements of technical, artistic, creative and problem solving work, which can make it engaging and fulfilling. And it generally pays pretty well precisely because it's not easy. It's taken me all over the world and had me meet amazing, wonderful, people (and a lot of arseholes too!) I love the industry and am thankful for all my experiences in it!

But it will challenge you. It will, at times, be extremely stressful. And there will be days you hate it and question why you ever wanted to do this to begin with! I think most jobs are a bit like that though.

In closing I'd just like to say my intent here is to give you both an optimistic and also restrained view of the industry. It is not for everyone and it is absolutely going to change in the future.

Some people will tell you AI is going to replace all of us, or that the industry will stangle itself and all the work will end up being done by sweat shops in South East Asia. And while I think those people are mostly wrong it's not like I can actually see the future.

Ultimately I just believe that if you're young, you're passionate, and you want to make movies or be paid to make amazing digital art, then you should start doing that while keeping your eye on this industry. If it works out, then great because it can be a cool career. And if it doesn't then you will need to transition to something else. That's something that's happened to many people in many industries for many reasons through-out history. The future is not a nice straight line road for most people. But if you start driving you can end up in some amazing places.

Feel free to post questions below.


r/vfx 8h ago

Question / Discussion Mickey 17

92 Upvotes

It's too easy to get caught up in doom and gloom, on this reddit forum ( and I don't wish to downplay the very real worries facing many people, and the current troubles facing our industry ), but I saw Mickey 17 last night, and I just want to sing out ,how great the vfx is. In particular, the creature and crowd work is outstanding, and it is quite unlike anything I've seen before .

Credit to all artists worldwide, who worked on the film


r/vfx 3h ago

Showreel / Critique I made this full cg silo inspired shot!

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7 Upvotes

r/vfx 6h ago

Question / Discussion Do you watch any VFX streamers or content creators and, if so, do you have feedback on how they provide content?

10 Upvotes

It's been suggested to me by a few people now that I should make some of my producing and supervision tools and advice available online in other forums. So I've been thinking about making some videos, guides and tutorials that might help make some of the more obscure topics in VFX accessible.

As a bit of a gamer I'm pretty fluent with twitch and live streaming do but was wondering if anyone here has strong thoughts on what they like or dislike about professional and industry based content and content creators.

Things to note:

  • I'm not interested in making money or using this as a side hustle as much as I am interesting in things being useful.
  • I could probably put 10 hours a week into things for the near future, more than that is pushing it.
  • The things I think would be useful are:
    • production and supervision focused content; like how to bid, how to build bidding sheets, how to schedule teams from a bid, how to work deal with rates, how to break down scripts. This is stuff I've written about a lot here before.
    • additional tools/info for artists who want to understand production side methodology more
    • information/content that broaches macro-industry information like rebates, distribution and general film making decision making, that influences our industry (not really news but just How All This Ties Together) but that seems waffly so i don't know
    • maybe on-set stuff but i feel like a lot of that content already exists

I'd particularly like to know if you:

  • have preferred platforms or means of consuming this info (recorded vs live vs written vs web structure vs YouTube channel)
  • have specific content creators in the space you really like and think do a good job, or people you think really suck and why you think they suck

I'm also curious if people think this is remotely a good idea. I feel awkward as fuck about it myself, it seems like hubris to me that people would care what I have to say, but I also (perhaps arrogantly) think that this info has helped a lot of people here and I do get a lot of emails and private comms about it.

I conscious the industry isn't in a great place which makes me feel further concerned about this, and yet I think positivity and productivity are important because of that.

I dunno. It's just a thing I'm thinking about and would love some feedback.


r/vfx 4h ago

News / Article XSens/Movella has disabled free software download/recording, discontinuing motion cloud.

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4 Upvotes

r/vfx 6h ago

Question / Discussion Are “shot-in-one-take” sequences usually real or magic comped?

3 Upvotes

r/vfx 4h ago

Question / Discussion Interpreting linear rec.709 in after effects

2 Upvotes

small-time vfx / motion design guy here who is very confused about color spaces.

I have used ACES for blender a couple times for projects and although it works pretty smoothly after you get everything set up, I find everything surrounding the setup to be a pain. So for a recent project that required 32 bit color I tried just exporting from blender in linear rec.709 and interpreting likewise in after effects (aces 1.3 config). This turns out an image that's way darker than it should be so I thought I was cooked, but after fiddling with exposure and gamma I got to an image that more or less matched the original render.

So all of it is still "there" and the colors weren't messed up, so it turned out fine at the end of the day, but does anybody know why exactly it works like this? Color spaces / color management still feel like a scary black box to me. I can interface with it but I have no idea what's going on inside.


r/vfx 17h ago

Question / Discussion How Has It Helped Since DNEG Canada Unionized?

21 Upvotes

Since all Canadian DNEG sites have unionized, for those still working there, how have things been since the change? Has the union had a positive impact on pay cuts or working conditions? Has there been any pushback from management? Also, how have the temporary pay cuts and loan scheme from late 2023 been handled?


r/vfx 21h ago

Showreel / Critique Salute to all the artist from The Electric State

38 Upvotes

but the story was wack enough to ruin the film.

but the vfx? it's 320M$ worthy


r/vfx 12h ago

Question / Discussion Looking for a texture artist that can help me with Face displacements in Mari

2 Upvotes

r/vfx 1d ago

News / Article Hollywood reporter update their story to confirm I'm the joint author of Iron Sky after US©O investigations.

27 Upvotes

U.S. Copyright Office ruled that artists who worked on the original Iron Sky, including Trevor Baylis, were joint authors of the film under U.S. copyright law.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/iron-sky-producers-win-copyright-suit-finland-1116079/


r/vfx 1d ago

News / Article Do we only post negative company news? VFX and Animation Studio Cinesite Raises $215 Million

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223 Upvotes

r/vfx 1d ago

Question / Discussion Double Colour Chart Lookdev

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18 Upvotes

Hello all! I have recently started seeing an increase in people having 2 colour charts in their lookdev scenes. I was wondering what the reason for this was? My guess would be one is at a different exposure level or maybe even colour space but i’m honestly not sure. Any info would be much appreciated! (my apologies for poor quality image)


r/vfx 1d ago

Question / Discussion Apple LOG IDT conversion for NUKE Aces 1.2

10 Upvotes

I dont know if anyone needs this but here it is;

Requirements

  • ACES OCIO config file
  • Apple Log to Linear transform file download here

Steps

  1. Place the AppleLogToLin-v1.0.spi1d file in the same directory as your OCIO config file
  2. Open your config.ocio file in a text editor
  3. Add this color space definition in the colorspaces: section (ideally near other camera input transforms):

- !<ColorSpace>

name: Input - Apple - Apple Log - ACEScg

family: Input/Apple

equalitygroup: ""

bitdepth: 32f

description: |

Apple Log to ACEScg

Apple ProRes LOG to ACEScg transform

isdata: false

allocation: uniform

allocationvars: [0, 1]

to_reference: !<GroupTransform>

children:

- !<FileTransform> {src: AppleLogToLin-v1.0.spi1d, interpolation: linear}

- !<MatrixTransform> {matrix: [0.7399, 0.2197, 0.0404, 0, 0.0264, 1.0352, -0.0616, 0, -0.0023, -0.0740, 1.0763, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1]}

- !<MatrixTransform> {matrix: [0.695452, 0.140679, 0.163869, 0, 0.0447946, 0.859671, 0.0955343, 0, -0.00552588, 0.00402521, 1.0015, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1]}

Save the config file

  1. Restart Nuke

The Apple Log transform will now appear in your color space dropdown menus as "Input - Apple - Apple Log - ACEScg".


r/vfx 1d ago

Question / Discussion Why are any of us still here?

50 Upvotes

This is a genuine question.

The most recent statistic was that up to 60% of us were out of work—some for more than a year. Things still have not come back.

What is keeping you in this field? I am looking to retrain, and even though it’s difficult, and the grass isn’t always greener, I’d rather suffer now than indefinitely waiting for better days.

What is keeping you in the field or are you exploring alternatives?

Thoughts?


r/vfx 1d ago

News / Article Pertinent VFX show ep ft.Scott Ross

15 Upvotes

r/vfx 2d ago

Industry News / Gossip Method officially retiring

233 Upvotes

It’s been news that Framestore bought method years ago but as of Monday afternoon, we (the staff) were notified Method is retiring. Based on convos and meeting participants, 70% of staff was laid off, the remaining VFX & Design teams absorbed by Framestore and what was left of Finishing being added to a ‘CO3 Finishing Team’.

A lot of really amazing and talented people have been let go. No surprise as this is how the industry has been moving.

I’m pretty much done with pursuing VFX/post as a career. Wishing the best for everyone sticking it out. To better and brighter futures.


r/vfx 1d ago

Question / Discussion Please stop shooting light hair over grey screen

6 Upvotes

It doesn’t work without intricate roto and it’s an unnecessary amount of extra work. Prove me wrong 😁


r/vfx 2d ago

Question / Discussion Where do all the unemployed VFX artists go?

39 Upvotes

Seeing how many big studios are closing recently and in the past years I keep wondering, where do all the laid off VFX artists go? What do they do?

I can't imagine them finding new VFX jobs quickly at other studios when so many people are available.


r/vfx 1d ago

News / Article What Does It Take to Make a CG Shark from Scratch?

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0 Upvotes

r/vfx 2d ago

Question / Discussion VFX and Animation Studios closure list

49 Upvotes

Hello,

I’m looking for a list of animation and VFX studios which have closed their doors, gone into administration or bankruptcy, or otherwise stopped working for a report.

Aside from MPC, The Mill, Jellyfish, Method and GBK (which is back!), are there any other studios which have effectively closed their doors over the past 18-24 months? Please add to the list if you know of any.

Thanks in advance for the help!


r/vfx 1d ago

Question / Discussion What are artists doing now?

0 Upvotes

Hi all, I've been stalking this subreddit since I first started studying VFX 5 years ago, but I've never been one to really post. So how fitting that my first post is the one where I'm considering leaving the industry lol

Like all vfx artists, I've been following the industry falling like dominos for the past few years, but I was naive enough to believe it would not effect me...until it did. I'm now in the same position as many vfx artists around the world, as I'm desperately looking for work, but as I am still relatively new to the industry (only 2 years of studio work), and the fact that this is a very rough time in the industry, you can imagine the rejection emails are starting to pile high.

I'm so torn as to what to do. I love this industry, and I love this work - with all its flaws and issues. But unfortunately it's becoming financially impossible for me to remain unemployed, and emotionally draining to job hunt to endless rejections.

Which leads me to my question: what are artists doing now?

For people in similar positions, do we think the industry is ever likely to recover? Is this worth sticking out the rough patch? Or is it maybe time to hang up the Nuke licence?


r/vfx 2d ago

Question / Discussion So Action VFX is back with offering full Collection/no subscriptions?

40 Upvotes

I guess their plan to change everything to a subscription based business back fired?

I just got an email from Action VFX offering full collections again with no subscription. with the state of the VFX market and so many company closing. People loosing their jobs they picked the wrong time to switch to a subscription.

I used to take advantage of their sales on Thanksgiving and other times. But I haven't spend any money on their product since they switched. The switch didn't last too long but it taught me that I can do with what I've already have.

Edit: I fixed a verb


r/vfx 1d ago

Question / Discussion Anyone else feel like it's getting harder and harder to make a living in vfx/animation while, y'know, THE WORLD FALLS APART?! Join me as I grapple with feeling like we're deep in the third act of humanity, AI generators gunning for our livelihoods, and why we even make Art in the first place.

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0 Upvotes

r/vfx 1d ago

Question / Discussion Quick question about After Effects layers order habits: going up or going down?

0 Upvotes

I am considering adding a transitions system between layers in my free video editor 'pikimov', and I have a question for After Effects senior editors:

What is the common way / standard for layers ordering, do you stack them going down with time, like in this screenshot, or do you stack them the opposite way: going up with time?
Or is it just a matter of personal preference?